Levis Agaba Section B 02/04/2009 Effects of Global Warming From newspapers to the internet, Global warming has forced its way into our ways of living. Evidence of global warming can be seen in the Tsunamis, hurricanes and other natural calamities that have dramatically increased both in intensity and size regarding climatic conditions around the world. Global reports on other climatic disasters have increased at an alarming rate. The cause, mainly attributed to human activity has been the main force behind this climatic monster that has established its self as the ultimate calamity as far as life on earth goes and yet scientists and skeptics still debate on whether it is caused by human activity or natural weather patterns. “The world has been warming ever since 1910, with a temperature maximum reached in the 1900’s.” (GLOBAL WARMING: Rise of CO2 & Warming, 2002) and yet this evidence has been hard to come by. “Global warming has already caused extinctions in the most sensitive habitats and will continue to cause more species to go extinct over the next 50 to 100 years, confirms the most comprehensive study since 2003 on the effects of climate change on wild species worldwide by a University of Texas at Austin biologist." These and increasing effects it has had and is still having on man and animal life in the past decades caused a number of meteorologists, weather analyzers to carry out researches and examine the real cause of global warming from a public perspective. There’s no doubt that global warming is caused by increased air pollution and yet these claims are still being investigated by many scientists. "It is scientifically inconceivable that after changing forests into cities, turning millions of acres into farmland, putting massive quantities of soot and dust into the atmosphere and sending quantities of greenhouse gases into the air, that the natural course of climate change hasn't been increased in the past century.'' (David. 2003. para 6). The evidence that it has become a major factor in determining the migration of different species from place to place should be enough to leave no reasonable doubt that it is indeed not a naturally created weather phenomenon created by unpredictable weather patterns. Global warming has negatively affected many animal lifestyles in that it has changed arctic food chains hence leading to deaths and a change in life patterns of arctic sea animals. Many of them, including polar bears and some species of seal, could be extinct within 20 years, a major conservation group said on Sunday (AP, January 31, 2005). The possibility that it is continuing to arise from the devastating evidence predicted by weather forecasters is beginning to take hold of the many researchers and weather analyzers, many of whom have spent years trying to debate whether global warming in deed is caused by humans. 1
"By 2050, rising temperatures exacerbated by human-induced belches of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could send more than a million of Earth's land-dwelling plants and animals down the road to extinction, according to a recent study conducted by Chris Thomas, a conservation biologist at the University of Leeds in the United Kingdom.(roach, 2004,para 1) "According to the researchers' collective results, the predicted range of climate change by 2050 will place 15 to 35 percent of the 1,103 species studied at risk of extinction. The numbers are expected to hold up when extrapolated globally, potentially dooming more than a million species." (Roach, 2004, para 8) "As global warming interacts with other factors such as habitat-destruction, invasive species, and the buildup of carbon dioxide in the landscape, the risk of extinction increases even further, they say." (Roach. 2004. para 11). This discovery has lead many people including scientists that global warming is indeed threatening the future of human life not only on earth but as well as in space. Not only is the rapid increase in temperature being discovered by scientists today, it is happening in areas hardest hit by monstrous weather elements such as deadly hurricanes and tsunamis. Scientists are generally linking these and many other catastrophes to the unexplained sudden change in world temperatures particularly rising temperatures. In a confirmed report made by the IPCC, temperatures are expected to rise from somewhere between 1.5 and more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 and more than 2 degrees Celsius) by the year 2050 “(Roach, 2004, Para 15) to many parents today, this can only spell one thing, torture and suffering for grand and great grand children not only does this pose a threat to human life on earth but to the future space missions many space scientists are investing in today. Methods that have been used in finding patterns and trends in climate change have proved consistent to the widely held theory about global warming’s status quo. Many methods that have been employed in finding these climatic trends and statistical patterns in relation to climatic conditions have proved consistent to a generalization. In 2004, U.S scientist Klyashtorin and Lyubshin analyzed the global thermometer temperature record from 1860 to 2000, and identified a recurring 60-year cycle. (Carter, January 20, 2009). In 2001, Russian geologist Sergey Kotov used the mathematics of chaos to analyze the atmospheric temperature record of the past 4000 years from a Greenland Ice core. (Carter, January 20, 2009) Not only do these conclusions indicate the complexity of weather patterns, but their unpredictable climatic effects and patterns. Word count: 930 Literature Cited. Kennedy, B. K. (2002). Extensive Research Survey Confirms Life on Earth Now Being Affected By Global Warming. Science Journal, 20 (1), 1. Leahy, S. (2004). Search For Arctic Life Heats Up. Wired, 1. 2